May 16 (Bloomberg) -- Home prices in Southern California
climbed last month from a year earlier for the first time in 16
months as sales of distressed properties, which usually sell at
a discount, dropped to the lowest level in four years.

The median paid for houses and condominiums was $290,000 in
Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Ventura, San Bernardino and
Orange counties, up 3.6 percent from both March and a year
earlier, San Diego-based data seller DataQuick said today in a
statement. Last month’s median was the highest since December
2010, when it also was $290,000.

The price increase was helped by a larger portion of
purchases in higher-priced coastal markets and a decline in
sales of foreclosed properties, DataQuick said. Foreclosures and
short sales -- deals where the transaction price is less than
the amount owed on the property -- made up about 47 percent of
last month’s resale market, the lowest level since April 2008.

“The housing market continued its painfully slow crawl
back toward normalcy last month,” DataQuick President John
Walsh said in the statement. “You can see it in the fading role
of foreclosures, the uptick in median prices here and there, and
the higher levels of sales in coastal counties.”

A total of 19,284 houses and condominiums sold in Los
Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Ventura, San Bernardino and
Orange counties, according to DataQuick. That was down 3.4
percent from March, and up 5.1 percent from April 2011. Last
month’s sales were 21 percent below the average for April since
1988, the company said.